Latest Threads
Latest
Greatest Threads
Greatest
Lobby
Lobby
Journals
Journals
Search
Search
Options
Options
Help
Help
Login
Login
Home » Discuss » Journals » bushmeat » Read entry Donate to DU
Advertise Liberally! The Liberal Blog Advertising Network
Advertise on more than 70 progressive blogs!
...
Posted by bushmeat in Latest Breaking News
Fri Jan 01st 2010, 08:45 PM
gamma radiation is a photon and cannot make food radioactive because the energy is insufficient

for something to become radioactive it has to be unstable nucleus

think of water which has hydrogen and oxygen

water has stable hydrogen for it to become radioactive you have to add a neutron to the hydrogen to make deuterium which is unstable and is radioactive

a neutron is 0.1 nm in size vs a photon which is infinitely smaller (it has no mass)

the only possible way for gamma radiation to make a nucleus unstable is to knock out a neutron by exceeding the binding energy of the neutron

hydrogen, which has the lowest binding energy for its neutron of all the elements, requires 2 million electron volts to lose its neutron

the two isotopes used for food irradiation are cobalt 60 and cesium 137 the peak for co-60 is 1.3 Mev and for cs-137 the peak is 0.662 Mev

so the gammas dont have enough energy to make anything radioactive
Discuss (3 comments)
Greatest Threads
The ten most recommended threads posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums in the last 24 hours.
StarStar
Star
Visitor Tools
Use the tools below to keep track of updates to this Journal.
 
Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals  |  Campaigns  |  Links  |  Store  |  Donate
About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy
Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.